 Hi guys, we're gonna do a little show and tell before we do anything So this month in explorations of me we're gonna be talking about when something bad happens something horrible Whether it's minor and mild or completely devastated. How do you devastating? How do you handle it? Can you easily make a A positive out of a negative or is it more difficult for you or do you just not even try So for me, of course If you've been following me for a while you number one probably recognize this journal I went and grabbed it off the shelves in the other room. I Don't necessarily handle net negative things well and things bad that happened well My first tendency is to overeat to be perfectly honest and frank and I Try to do art instead. It's one of the reasons I started picking up creativity years ago My poor husband when he first met me had no idea. I did anything creative for the poor guy 30 some years later and yeah Poor guy. I had set it aside for years when I met him Then I was just doing so did sewing and needle crafts and I had just set it aside put it in a closet and Hadn't gone back to it at all. I didn't go back to being creative until I Later in life Around the time probably that we got married is when I seriously got into doing some things that it was sewing mixed media and journaling I probably started picking up around Maybe 2008 This is My first YouTube video is in 2012 Anyway, this is a video journal from a video series here on YouTube that I've done Called negativity Smackdown now before you see this video. I am going to try to Make sure I put the videos from this series into a playlist if I haven't already because honestly at the point of filling this I don't remember I in 2012 Got hurt on the job at work. I was a merchandiser and team lead for a greeting card company and Through no fault of theirs or mine. I got hurt on the job So anyway, the short story is I'm not able to do that job anymore I now have asthma and I've had surgery on one of my shoulders It's going through that process of getting hurt Coming to the realization. You can't do what you I did love my job. Let me say this first of all I love a good greeting card. I loved my job. I loved being a merchandiser Maybe a team lead not so much, but I loved being a merchant merchandiser I loved being on the account doing my job and Doing it In a lot of cases the accounts would let you in before the stores opened And meant sometimes you had to be outside at 4 a.m. But it was really Nice to get in and get your job done and get out in the peace and quiet of that time of the morning I really enjoyed the job very much. I Miss it and you will occasionally if you're shopping with me and we pass by a greeting card department see me Unable to help myself but walk by and push the cards down if they're poking up. I just can't help it anyway So this journal was done during the process that I was going through at that time of getting hurt Realizing I couldn't do my job the whole process of dealing with workman's comp and doctors and getting a proper diagnosis and proper medication the whole thing if Any of you who've been through that, you know, the whole thing is super stressful And I've done videos on this journal now This journal is just a composition notebook. It is nothing special. I love this one. I wish I had a cleaning fairy It's nothing special. It's just a regular composition notebook made out of binder paper I do have two pages glued together I start off each page by journaling out the negative Whatever it is that's bothering me I just fill up two pages and I write it out and Sometimes write it out and then go back and write it out some more And then I turn the negative into a positive and tried to find a positive and mess it positive message in each negative thing or negative Yeah, negative thing that happened or a thing that was bothering me and I think I did a pretty good job. I really loved the whole process It was very satisfying. It really did the job and I Do still when things are bothering me do what's called daily pages Daily pages for me at least are a separate notebook that's downstairs that I write three pages and it's not quite this big but I write three pages in Without paying attention to spelling or grammar. It's just like one really continually Long run-on sentence and just write out what's on my mind. What's on my thoughts, especially when things are bothering me Some of these pages have ended up on postcards that I use for the Etsy shop like this one and the one prior So anyway this and despite the fact that I've waxed the pages you can hear that they're just sticking just a little bit If this was a really satisfying process and to be honest, I don't know that I've ever done a Full comprehensive flip of this journal. It's possible. I did. I don't know. I finished it so long ago I honestly don't remember And you could see each page completely new and unique and different the pieces and parts and paint that I used on it Depending honestly on what was on my table at the time Whatever had landed on my table or was this within easy easy reach is that that's what I used It was a very organic process for me and as I was writing again. I tried really hard to find The positive message I was trying to tell myself in the negative thing that happened or the negative thoughts I was having like this one keep moving forward. Just keep moving forward Turn you can turn your dreams into reality, but do But do you want to So I would definitely encourage you to have some sort of journal like this In your space if you're in our journal or that you can what you don't have to show it to the world I said that negativity smackdown which those of you who've been following the process know morphed into something with clay in collaboration with Cindy utter that now is Explorations of me she was doing something similar to this and we decided to merge the two together That's how explorations of me came along So anyway, I really would encourage you to have in our journal like this That you can work in that you can work out the negative try to find the positive message or the silver lining and whatever it is It's happened sometimes there isn't one and sometimes you just need to work out that negative shit You need to just get it out of your head. So it doesn't clog up your brain and For me, that's what the daily writing pages that are downstairs is about it when I have things Especially in my head that there's not going to be any pretty outcome about or that at least I'm not clear about it I do have three daily pages and I do try to do them daily. I've been bad about that lately But I do try to do them lately. Oh Yeah, this one I used Something on it no matter what I do. It's gonna always be sticky. So that's that's the thing So there's a piece of wax paper here This was again, this was a really fun Journal to work on and each page was worked out in random And as you can see the pages got, you know, your journal gets curly, right? Well, I just Did this Curl it back on itself I do that with a lot of my journals because at some point It gets too puffy. I do think this took me Over a year to finish This one the message underneath just really needed blotting out obviously because I Blotted out most of the page. It is fun to go back here and look and see what's in here. I Should probably add some more wax to some of these Again, the pages were done at random where I might do one here in the back of the journal at one point And then I would flip to the front and do one that I'd go to the middle and do one They were done at random. They weren't done in order and I just opened it to a page that felt right and Then I worked with that and whatever was going on at that time, whatever emotion was going on. I Did most of the work on camera. I guess that's it and I've kept the journal I Know some people do journals like this and then they burn them to get rid of the negative energy I kept the journal because for me it was about working through whatever the negative thing was again and finding that positive message in it So this would be one way I would suggest that you work To find the positive message in whatever the negative thing is it happened has happened because there usually is one We just don't always see it right away And I say usually maybe not always but usually Unless it's a horrible catastrophic Thing and I know some people that's happened to lately and my heart's heart and prayers go out to them Anyway, we are going to practice with doing a Negativity Smackdown type of journal page in my large delusions journal now I'm gonna fast forward through the process as you're watching me do this think about doing one of these for yourself And maybe even going back and replaying some of the old explorations of me prompts and maybe you want to use some of the prompts to Help you with your own negativity Smackdown journal I will again link the playlist for this journal and the videos I can find on YouTube all or most of it was done on YouTube So I will link it in the description below if there's not a playlist. I'll make one and Yeah, let's get to it. Shall we? Okay, this was a lot of fun getting back to my old days of journaling And doing something like this. I love this. So the image For the page came off of An anniversary card I bought for my husband We do buy cards for each other. No, we don't keep them not generally You know like most people they just get tossed in the trash at some point unless I can find a piece to read Isn't a journal then it's sort of my way of preserving it and this came in a package of wish stickers It came this morning and it says to the world you may be one person but to one person you may be the world and If you could read through my messy journaling in the background, I was writing about feeling sometimes like Insignificant basically and that in some situations around some groups of people it doesn't really matter if I'm there or not They don't really give a crap But that's not really true and when it comes to certain things It may not be about the group of people caring that I'm there But maybe it's just about one person caring that I'm there I may not feel like I matter, but I do matter And it it's fun to you know work out of those feelings and find that again positive in that horrible situation in that negative situation abusing yourself and Not taking care of yourself isn't going to make a bad situation better. It's only going to make it worse so You know if your way of coping is having a bar of chocolate go have a bar of chocolate It's better than doing something more destructive But see about working it out in an art journal or and doing a negativity smackdown page or maybe you can Do some daily pages of writing every day For as long as you feel like you need to and maybe that will help Try something and if you have other suggestions of our other ways for people to work through Whatever negative situation they're finding themselves in or they're finding them that whether it's mentally or physically or some Financially or some other way Maybe you all have suggestions of ways other than art journaling that people can try put them in the comments below We would love to hear all of the other teachers this month their videos are linked in the description below So please go check them out and show them some love Check out the negativity smackdown playlist if you haven't seen it before because you might really like it and get some ideas Don't forget to like share and subscribe Check out my link tree list of links for places that you can find me on social media to follow me and see what I'm up to every day Art wise especially I do post every day You can also find ways to support me and the free content here on Facebook and Here on YouTube and over on Facebook and all of that is in the link tree list of links My happy mail addresses down there, too. Should you choose to send me some happy mail? I'm always up for that The most important thing is to go out and have a great day Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it, and I'll see you later. Bye guys